Over the years I have been involved in and have delivered a whole variety of pre-activity warm ups. Now I say here pre-activity, because although warm ups are associated primarily with sports competition, they also take place in every area of performance - from music and the arts, to business presentations, right down to simple activities in everyday life.
The generally accepted idea is that this area of preparation falls into two distinct categories - physical and mental. Certainly in the area of sports and teams I have worked with this has been so and, while I used to treat them as distinct almost to the extent of being mutually exclusive, I now work from the premise that the quality of mental readiness is the best thing to drive both the quality AND the effectiveness of the physical warm up.
The mental preparation, the mental warm-up, starts in the changing room; however - the quality level of mental readiness starts long before any individual or member of a team enters that changing room. The purpose of the mental preparation is to then view the level of readiness and recognise what the next step is.
So where do I, as a mental performance coach, fit into this scenario for my players?
Well, it used to be all from the premise of state management and how best I could bring each player into managing their own state from moment to moment. With individuals this was more impactful, because of the depth of our rapport and the "intensity" of my guidance. Now with teams it was much harder to deliver and was dependent upon the numbers in the team. Although it was generally effective, there would be occasional periods of synchronicity - amazing moments of collective zen - where the team almost behaved in one unified state. In these times they achieved everything the processes they were executing were intended to do.
The thing was, I was always looking for more effectiveness in what I was doing for them - searching for things that would bring a level of more consistency in their ability to access and maintain good states of mind, and, dare I say, even regularly capture more of those pure flow or zen moments.
It was, certainly in the sporting side of my work, rather like the search for the holy grail!
I watch an inordinate amount of high level competitive sport - not so much for the spectacle or the partisan involvement - but rather for the sheer nature of what the competitors are doing, how they are doing it, and - most especially - how their ebbing and flowing states of mind are being played out in terms of their physical manifestations. The viewable part of their mind-body link, if you like.
Robots and Love
Now if these competitors were unemotional robots then the outcome of these contests would be down to which cybernaut had the best physical and tactical attributes. Since the statistical data of the robots would be measurable and known beforehand - there would probably be no real purpose in playing out the competition to see who is best - it is a given. The only thing that would bring the contest to life in meaningful terms would be the pleasure, the love, of playing the game. Of course robots have no comprehension of emotions such as pleasure and love - and therein is the reason why we, as humans, really play sport. It's about play, pleasure and love - all really powerful and positive human emotions.
Now my teams and players are not robots, so THE most overriding reasons for them playing their sport is for pleasure - for the love of it. What brings them to any contest (or even any practice session) is the sheer love of the game, and the next closest reason is the common bond of association with the people that are also involved.
If you think about motivation to practice; going to the gym or jogging on a dark, wet morning; or right down to something as mundane as ironing (almost!), there has to be love in there somewhere. Love of the activity or play; love of neat and smooth clothing; love of ourselves and what's best for us and feeling good about ourselves. If love isn't overriding all other emotions then we are less inclined to do something.
Baggage
Now, although this vehicle (love) brings the players to this particular sporting encounter, they also bring their individual mental states - their 'baggage'. This baggage, like all baggage, can be of various sizes and contain a whole variety of things, issues, concerns, feelings etc., all things that go to make up their mood. In terms of a rugby team this will be (including substitutes) 18 different sets of baggage with 18 different sets of contents. So a mental warm-up needs to take account of this and, in essence, bring some alignment for the players in terms of pointing them in the same direction, (orientation), and get them singing from the same hymn sheet, (attunement).
Now for me to talk as they all sit listening is a very 'mainstream' way of doing things - even though many of the things I might say to them are 'off the wall', from a maverick mind-set, and so on.
Mainstream context, maverick content.
The difference came for me when I decided to double up on maverick, by taking a totally different line in terms of context. In my article called "Off The Wall" I explain some of the immediate details. (see February 2012 archive).
The key, I've found, is for them to (1) acknowledge the fact that their baggage is going to get in their way if they take it onto the field of play, and they'll trip over it or take their 'eye off the ball' in order to negotiate their way around it. In addition (2) for play to really have a purpose in terms of their love of it, they need to engage with that love.
Once that connection, or reconnection, is made then the mental warm-up is done - and the rest of the warm-up (physical) can be as short or as long as circumstances will allow or as I deem to be relevant. The thing I've found is that the physical warm-up should just be to awaken muscles and joints and re-familiarise players with certain technical or tactical processes.
Mistakes will happen in physical warm-up and these, dare I say it, are good for players who are in a high mental state. At this level players will view mistakes and errors as opportunities to make fine tunings and adjustments to those processes. They are not taken as being indicative of "not being switched on" or "lacking focus". They are merely bodies being woken up to the weather or pitch conditions, and levels of attunedness of the physical 'machines'.
When those same players make mistakes in the physical warm-up and they are not in a good mental state, there is a wide range of individual and collective self-criticism - because when in a low mood players will only recognise errors as being indicative of a lack of readiness, a lack of care, a pointer towards playing badly. And we all know what stations those particular trains of thought are heading for!
I also think of warm-ups as not just being pre-match. There are instances in the match where play pauses and then re-starts. Half times, drinks breaks, changing of ends, end of rounds, injury stops etc - these are all opportunities for warm-ups. They are all distractions in terms of the players' concentration and focus, so why not re-orient that concentration by deciding that all re-starts need some form of warm-up? Makes sense doesn't it!
Don't give it a second thought
In a recent match my rugby side were 17-0 ahead and needed one more try for a bonus point. With less than ten minutes left in the game the opposition scored. Now, several times in the past I have seen sides become almost paralysed by their own poor reactions to such a scenario - and these lads have been no exception. I can almost recite the script running through their thoughts, "We've let them score. If that happens again they'll catch us up and we'll have thrown this game away..." They then proceed to act out the script and "throw the game away".
On this occasion I was able to talk to them in a huddle as the opponents' kicker was taking the conversion. The point I made was that at 17-5 (or 17-7 if his kick went over) and less than ten minutes to go, it didn't matter whether they scored again or let alone how we might feel about that. The only REAL thing that mattered was that we needed one more try for a bonus point - and that everything we did between now and the final whistle should be focussed on that alone. I reminded them of their LOVE for what they are playing and who they are playing with. They scored with less than 3 minutes to go, secured the bonus point and their opponents were eclipsed without my players giving it a second thought!
Conclusion
Warm-ups are hugely relevant to performance and need to be effective rather than functional. They need to be flexible - and whoever runs them and however they are run, there needs to be an understanding of mental readiness and an engagement with the binding purpose that puts players at their highest level of mood or state of mind.
When we put thought into our warm-ups we need to be mindful of what that contains. When we put no thought in at all the warm-ups become robotic and, as we know, robots and humans (with all their emotions) are literally poles apart!
The Wright Way
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Thought Allergy
My Runny Nose
When I was young, between the ages of around 6-23, I suffered daily from sinus problems. It was like having incessant common cold symptoms but without the sneezing. I had the moist eyes, the blocked-inside and runny-outside nose – it was like I couldn’t ‘dry up’. Of course, when I really did have a cold, I had it full on and ‘with interest’.
I had a great aunt who’d been a nurse, and her judgement every time I was in her company was “that child should have his adenoids out.” She lived and worked in times where children would “have things out” as a matter of course – things like tonsils and adenoids. Her era was the same generation that still administered corporal punishment to left handed children in schools to beat right-handedness into them. She put the fear of god into me every time she noticed my sniffling.
Honey
My Dad suffered from hay fever at certain times of year, and I noticed that when he did, his daily suffering was rather like mine. Now whilst I didn’t make the connection, I did notice that he used honey to help alleviate his symptoms. I must have been aged 20 when I was reading a science fiction short story in which the inhabitants of a particular ‘world’ only had honey as a sweetener. Something in me set off a train of thought and I wondered what it would be like to have honey instead of sugar. Consequently I experimented by having honey instead of all the times I had sugar – in tea, coffee, on cereals etc. Some of the tastes were a touch challenging, but I really allowed myself to be engaged in being my own ‘laboratory rat’.
Very soon I noticed something different – my daily nasal problems eased dramatically. When, eventually, the honey fad wore off I went back to my usual eating and dietary habits, the sinus symptoms, runny nose et al returned. So I stopped the sugar and went back to honey – and they eased off once more.
These were the days before the noticing and understanding of food allergies was in the public domain. However, I had stumbled across a food allergy that was blighting my daily life and had also found what would be a suitable alternative to sugar. Eventually, after some more trial and error, I discovered that when I had brown sugar it was almost as effective as having honey. So, given the taste challenges (and cost!), I switched to brown sugar – realising that I had an allergy to white sugar. I then deduced how many other things I was eating used refined sugar in their making or processing and either cut them out or reduced them from my food and drink intake. I’d been able to take control of that part of my life.
It is still working for me to this day. Around Christmas time, with the excess of sweets, confectionery, and cakes in my diet, I have nasal trouble every year from late December for about 2 months. This is also a very bad time for colds and ‘flu anyway, so my issues are amplified!
“Hell on Wheels”
The thing is – I know what effects these ‘toxins’ bring for me. Having a ‘sweet tooth’ doesn’t help – however I do know that my own (nasal) destiny is in my own hands and that it is my choice if I have some sweets, cakes, biscuits, or not.
Now what would my life have been like if I’d just endured and lived on with the symptoms, daily, for over forty years? If I’d lived on, totally unaware that my own solution was actually in my own hands! If I’d lived on oblivious to knowing that by changing one ever-present, innocuous - yet influential - substance in my diet that I could and would bring about such an enduring change for myself. It would have been a variety of “hell on wheels” cocooned in spent tissues and wet handkerchiefs!
Thought Allergy
There is a huge degree of similarity between my white sugar allergy and its effects, and errant thinking, mistaken beliefs and warped and irregular ‘maps of the world’. There is a great deal of truth lying around the idea of ‘toxic thought’ – thought that is harmful, thought that does us no good and causes symptoms within us that we would happily avoid if we knew what it was happening.
What if we could see and come to understand what, for each of us, were our particular Thought Allergies?
All of our emotions and emotional reactions come from our thinking. When we experience anything it doesn’t come in a box with a warning on the side saying “Danger – this experience contains X,Y,Z and E(motion).” – No, the emotion is added by us, by our thinking. We carry around a vast palette of emotion, ready to add whatever colour we feel driven to do, to enhance our experiences. Whether those experiences are good, neutral or bad we have the ability – through our thinking – to amplify them, by dabbing (or daubing) bits of emotional ‘paint’ onto everything.
Now if some of this dabbing and daubing involves some thought we have an allergy to – then the outcome of the experience is not going to be very good for our wellbeing. Added to this – every time we encounter this (and any similarly generalised) experience, then the allergy starts to kick in.
All phobias are highly virulent thought allergies. All embarrassments are thought allergies. When we become red-faced through certain experiences, it is our body’s allergic response to our own particular thinking. If we don’t like something a certain person has said to us, then that “don’t like” has come from our thinking, and our response is to dab how we’ve experienced that remark with a blob of particularly coloured emotional paint! Then, every time we hear a similar remark we match it with the memory of the experience and notice, “Oh look there’s a blob of X coloured emotional paint here. Perhaps this is the way I should respond?” And most times we do just that. More repeats – more daubs and blobs – building up the conditioning on that response.
So how can we change, once we know about these allergic thought responses? Well, rather in the same way we might do it for a food allergy – we can choose to keep that particular thinking out of our diet, keep that train of thought off our railways, look at our menu and decide to have the ‘vegetarian’ or nut-free choice today.
“I can’t help myself”
I am confronted by a lot of people who say “I know what I should do, but I just can’t seem to help myself.” Now, this might be their response to dietary issues, choices they need to make when they are endeavouring to lose weight and gain fitness, issues with self-esteem and confidence, the need to enjoy better health, deal with stress and anxiety, and a whole range of negative experiences big and small – as they just look for and hope to bring more wellbeing in their lives. And we often find ourselves in this “just can’t seem to help myself” kind of situation.
If we don’t have any idea that it’s an allergic response to our thinking, where our processes of recognising our toxic thinking or our thought allergies, have become clouded by highly painted emotion, then we’ll just plough on regardless – probably using more toxic thinking to help deal with toxic thinking! Even if we do know the cause – i.e. realise it’s an allergy – we can still “eat the sugary stuff” and suffer the consequences. The thing is – ONCE we know what’s causing things THEN we have a choice, and once our recognition isn’t clouded any more, then we can easily make the RIGHT choice.
Take a response to something our partner has said or done – whether it is appropriate, justified, or not. We can paint it with emotion and allow it to smoulder or catch fire or we can recognise our thinking and put down the emotional paintbrush. If we choose the former, we can then let it blaze on unabated, or we can dampen down the fire and let it go out – by again realising what is really causing the fire. Not the original response even – but the fire that has resulted from it. Now for as long as we think we are always right – or we ‘kid ourselves’ that they think we are always wrong, our relationship is going to be blighted. And the common denominator here is we think. This we think is an allergy for us, especially when it causes in us a response we don’t like.
Conclusion
I’d invite you to look into The Three Principles, and watch, listen to and read about the inside-out nature of Reality. One of those Principles is Thought – and it is from here that I am able to draw a distinct metaphorical parallel with the allergies of my youth. There is a growing number of accessible means of discovering information on The Three Principles, which is a very straightforward and yet fundamental approach to our day to day psychological wellbeing. There are also a growing number of teachers, guides, mentors to help us all gain an embodied understanding of these Principles. The thing is – there is no extensive learning that needs to take place! It is more about opening ourselves up to an intuitive understanding – rather in the same way I did when I chose the honey route with my, then unknown, white sugar allergy. Fortunately for me, I dared to take the honey route long enough to get the insight about white sugar.
The thing about thought allergies, rather as with food allergies – once we know what they are, then life becomes much more what it should be for us all. Something to be enjoyed!
Once my nose stopped running day after day, the days became much more pleasurable, much more of an opportunity to enjoy everything that was going on in my life. Once I recognised my thought allergies, the days and everything and everyone in them got better and better. That recognition gave me a whole, new and multi-dimensional perspective on reality. For me there were many years between seeing white sugar and thought for what they really are! Mind you, that was how it turned out for me – which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s that way for you or everyone else!
And for the rest of my days I’ll have a lifelong understanding of thought allergies and the real meaning behind the phrase “Who Dares Wins”!
When I was young, between the ages of around 6-23, I suffered daily from sinus problems. It was like having incessant common cold symptoms but without the sneezing. I had the moist eyes, the blocked-inside and runny-outside nose – it was like I couldn’t ‘dry up’. Of course, when I really did have a cold, I had it full on and ‘with interest’.
I had a great aunt who’d been a nurse, and her judgement every time I was in her company was “that child should have his adenoids out.” She lived and worked in times where children would “have things out” as a matter of course – things like tonsils and adenoids. Her era was the same generation that still administered corporal punishment to left handed children in schools to beat right-handedness into them. She put the fear of god into me every time she noticed my sniffling.
Honey
My Dad suffered from hay fever at certain times of year, and I noticed that when he did, his daily suffering was rather like mine. Now whilst I didn’t make the connection, I did notice that he used honey to help alleviate his symptoms. I must have been aged 20 when I was reading a science fiction short story in which the inhabitants of a particular ‘world’ only had honey as a sweetener. Something in me set off a train of thought and I wondered what it would be like to have honey instead of sugar. Consequently I experimented by having honey instead of all the times I had sugar – in tea, coffee, on cereals etc. Some of the tastes were a touch challenging, but I really allowed myself to be engaged in being my own ‘laboratory rat’.
Very soon I noticed something different – my daily nasal problems eased dramatically. When, eventually, the honey fad wore off I went back to my usual eating and dietary habits, the sinus symptoms, runny nose et al returned. So I stopped the sugar and went back to honey – and they eased off once more.
These were the days before the noticing and understanding of food allergies was in the public domain. However, I had stumbled across a food allergy that was blighting my daily life and had also found what would be a suitable alternative to sugar. Eventually, after some more trial and error, I discovered that when I had brown sugar it was almost as effective as having honey. So, given the taste challenges (and cost!), I switched to brown sugar – realising that I had an allergy to white sugar. I then deduced how many other things I was eating used refined sugar in their making or processing and either cut them out or reduced them from my food and drink intake. I’d been able to take control of that part of my life.
It is still working for me to this day. Around Christmas time, with the excess of sweets, confectionery, and cakes in my diet, I have nasal trouble every year from late December for about 2 months. This is also a very bad time for colds and ‘flu anyway, so my issues are amplified!
“Hell on Wheels”
The thing is – I know what effects these ‘toxins’ bring for me. Having a ‘sweet tooth’ doesn’t help – however I do know that my own (nasal) destiny is in my own hands and that it is my choice if I have some sweets, cakes, biscuits, or not.
Now what would my life have been like if I’d just endured and lived on with the symptoms, daily, for over forty years? If I’d lived on, totally unaware that my own solution was actually in my own hands! If I’d lived on oblivious to knowing that by changing one ever-present, innocuous - yet influential - substance in my diet that I could and would bring about such an enduring change for myself. It would have been a variety of “hell on wheels” cocooned in spent tissues and wet handkerchiefs!
Thought Allergy
There is a huge degree of similarity between my white sugar allergy and its effects, and errant thinking, mistaken beliefs and warped and irregular ‘maps of the world’. There is a great deal of truth lying around the idea of ‘toxic thought’ – thought that is harmful, thought that does us no good and causes symptoms within us that we would happily avoid if we knew what it was happening.
What if we could see and come to understand what, for each of us, were our particular Thought Allergies?
All of our emotions and emotional reactions come from our thinking. When we experience anything it doesn’t come in a box with a warning on the side saying “Danger – this experience contains X,Y,Z and E(motion).” – No, the emotion is added by us, by our thinking. We carry around a vast palette of emotion, ready to add whatever colour we feel driven to do, to enhance our experiences. Whether those experiences are good, neutral or bad we have the ability – through our thinking – to amplify them, by dabbing (or daubing) bits of emotional ‘paint’ onto everything.
Now if some of this dabbing and daubing involves some thought we have an allergy to – then the outcome of the experience is not going to be very good for our wellbeing. Added to this – every time we encounter this (and any similarly generalised) experience, then the allergy starts to kick in.
All phobias are highly virulent thought allergies. All embarrassments are thought allergies. When we become red-faced through certain experiences, it is our body’s allergic response to our own particular thinking. If we don’t like something a certain person has said to us, then that “don’t like” has come from our thinking, and our response is to dab how we’ve experienced that remark with a blob of particularly coloured emotional paint! Then, every time we hear a similar remark we match it with the memory of the experience and notice, “Oh look there’s a blob of X coloured emotional paint here. Perhaps this is the way I should respond?” And most times we do just that. More repeats – more daubs and blobs – building up the conditioning on that response.
So how can we change, once we know about these allergic thought responses? Well, rather in the same way we might do it for a food allergy – we can choose to keep that particular thinking out of our diet, keep that train of thought off our railways, look at our menu and decide to have the ‘vegetarian’ or nut-free choice today.
“I can’t help myself”
I am confronted by a lot of people who say “I know what I should do, but I just can’t seem to help myself.” Now, this might be their response to dietary issues, choices they need to make when they are endeavouring to lose weight and gain fitness, issues with self-esteem and confidence, the need to enjoy better health, deal with stress and anxiety, and a whole range of negative experiences big and small – as they just look for and hope to bring more wellbeing in their lives. And we often find ourselves in this “just can’t seem to help myself” kind of situation.
If we don’t have any idea that it’s an allergic response to our thinking, where our processes of recognising our toxic thinking or our thought allergies, have become clouded by highly painted emotion, then we’ll just plough on regardless – probably using more toxic thinking to help deal with toxic thinking! Even if we do know the cause – i.e. realise it’s an allergy – we can still “eat the sugary stuff” and suffer the consequences. The thing is – ONCE we know what’s causing things THEN we have a choice, and once our recognition isn’t clouded any more, then we can easily make the RIGHT choice.
Take a response to something our partner has said or done – whether it is appropriate, justified, or not. We can paint it with emotion and allow it to smoulder or catch fire or we can recognise our thinking and put down the emotional paintbrush. If we choose the former, we can then let it blaze on unabated, or we can dampen down the fire and let it go out – by again realising what is really causing the fire. Not the original response even – but the fire that has resulted from it. Now for as long as we think we are always right – or we ‘kid ourselves’ that they think we are always wrong, our relationship is going to be blighted. And the common denominator here is we think. This we think is an allergy for us, especially when it causes in us a response we don’t like.
Conclusion
I’d invite you to look into The Three Principles, and watch, listen to and read about the inside-out nature of Reality. One of those Principles is Thought – and it is from here that I am able to draw a distinct metaphorical parallel with the allergies of my youth. There is a growing number of accessible means of discovering information on The Three Principles, which is a very straightforward and yet fundamental approach to our day to day psychological wellbeing. There are also a growing number of teachers, guides, mentors to help us all gain an embodied understanding of these Principles. The thing is – there is no extensive learning that needs to take place! It is more about opening ourselves up to an intuitive understanding – rather in the same way I did when I chose the honey route with my, then unknown, white sugar allergy. Fortunately for me, I dared to take the honey route long enough to get the insight about white sugar.
The thing about thought allergies, rather as with food allergies – once we know what they are, then life becomes much more what it should be for us all. Something to be enjoyed!
Once my nose stopped running day after day, the days became much more pleasurable, much more of an opportunity to enjoy everything that was going on in my life. Once I recognised my thought allergies, the days and everything and everyone in them got better and better. That recognition gave me a whole, new and multi-dimensional perspective on reality. For me there were many years between seeing white sugar and thought for what they really are! Mind you, that was how it turned out for me – which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s that way for you or everyone else!
And for the rest of my days I’ll have a lifelong understanding of thought allergies and the real meaning behind the phrase “Who Dares Wins”!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Who am I to judge?
When I coach I'm doing what I love. It is part of my identity, I have a large number of beliefs associated with coaching, I have an acquired and experiential range of skills that support my work, and my working behaviour follows a set of well defined patterns. It's not something I do - it's what I am.
As a sports coach dealing with a lot of young players, part of my heart goes out with everyone I have ever worked with. It's an associative relationship. As a result there are many pleasurable instances upon seeing, and hearing of, players' successes and advances. There are downsides of course because that's human nature - and so the disappointments have to be borne alongside the satisfactions.
However - should this go for their off-field as well as on-field actions?
There are occasions when I find my work being judged for both - which is misguided I know, but it has had an effect on clients both current and potential. Now, whilst I'm not saying whether this is a positive or a negative effect...I'm sure you can reach the conclusion that, when the world is viewing the activities of "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", it is not "The Good" stuff that leads to a loss of business!
Dealing with the effects of Judgement
The other effect of judgement is where, in the scheme of things, is it likely to hit us the most?
This is where an understanding of the logical levels within NLP is really useful in making changes to how we are dealing with something like this. The logical levels (developed by Roberts Dilts) follow a hierarchy from low to high along the following range of categories:-
Environment - Behaviour - Skills & Strategies - Beliefs and Values - Identity & Mission - Spirituality & Purpose
Since part of my coaching lies at the level of identity, then any judgement of it will have an impact at that level. So when such a misguided judgement impugns who I am, then I have a tendency to take it badly or "take it to heart" you might say.
And this leads me to going through the process of questioning myself and some of my associations.
At the end of the day I return to my beliefs, one of which is that people are not their behaviours.
History has shown - both above and below the threshold between being visible or anonymous - that those who are judged as doing 'good' things are not necessarily 'good' people and vice versa.
We should all remember there are sometimes gulfs between peoples' identities, beliefs, skills and behaviours. As witnessed with dictators, priests, pickpockets, saints, and the rest of us 'mere mortals'.
Fortunately for me this belief is strong enough to counteract the effects of the misguided judgement at all levels - though ONLY after I have considered the belief and the judgement side by side. Before I make the connection however, I get to process the full force of the judgement upon myself.
Conclusion
To be fair, knowing the logical levels actually channels the few judgements I do make into the appropriate area, the proper level. It helps me understand people's actions, behaviours and motives in a much clearer way - and that includes myself.
There are two 'cultures' within society today that are particularly embraced by the young - one is alcohol and the other is selfless altruism. This week, having found myself associated with people whose actions embrace both cultures, it would be very easy to judge them accordingly!
But I won't - because ultimately Who Am I To Judge?
As a sports coach dealing with a lot of young players, part of my heart goes out with everyone I have ever worked with. It's an associative relationship. As a result there are many pleasurable instances upon seeing, and hearing of, players' successes and advances. There are downsides of course because that's human nature - and so the disappointments have to be borne alongside the satisfactions.
However - should this go for their off-field as well as on-field actions?
There are occasions when I find my work being judged for both - which is misguided I know, but it has had an effect on clients both current and potential. Now, whilst I'm not saying whether this is a positive or a negative effect...I'm sure you can reach the conclusion that, when the world is viewing the activities of "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", it is not "The Good" stuff that leads to a loss of business!
Dealing with the effects of Judgement
The other effect of judgement is where, in the scheme of things, is it likely to hit us the most?
This is where an understanding of the logical levels within NLP is really useful in making changes to how we are dealing with something like this. The logical levels (developed by Roberts Dilts) follow a hierarchy from low to high along the following range of categories:-
Environment - Behaviour - Skills & Strategies - Beliefs and Values - Identity & Mission - Spirituality & Purpose
Since part of my coaching lies at the level of identity, then any judgement of it will have an impact at that level. So when such a misguided judgement impugns who I am, then I have a tendency to take it badly or "take it to heart" you might say.
And this leads me to going through the process of questioning myself and some of my associations.
At the end of the day I return to my beliefs, one of which is that people are not their behaviours.
History has shown - both above and below the threshold between being visible or anonymous - that those who are judged as doing 'good' things are not necessarily 'good' people and vice versa.
We should all remember there are sometimes gulfs between peoples' identities, beliefs, skills and behaviours. As witnessed with dictators, priests, pickpockets, saints, and the rest of us 'mere mortals'.
Fortunately for me this belief is strong enough to counteract the effects of the misguided judgement at all levels - though ONLY after I have considered the belief and the judgement side by side. Before I make the connection however, I get to process the full force of the judgement upon myself.
Conclusion
To be fair, knowing the logical levels actually channels the few judgements I do make into the appropriate area, the proper level. It helps me understand people's actions, behaviours and motives in a much clearer way - and that includes myself.
There are two 'cultures' within society today that are particularly embraced by the young - one is alcohol and the other is selfless altruism. This week, having found myself associated with people whose actions embrace both cultures, it would be very easy to judge them accordingly!
But I won't - because ultimately Who Am I To Judge?
Monday, February 13, 2012
Off The Wall
I’ve written a number of articles about pre-match and half-time team talks and strategies – their contents and effects both conscious and unconscious. It’s a fascinating area, and to be honest, there’s always an observable difference in the way players are behaving as a result, when they get into competition.
For me this is quite satisfying. However, my dilemma with the rugby team I coach on a voluntary basis is that this is now the fourth season I’ve coached them and, although the mixture of team personnel has changed through these years, I’ve probably done about 50 team talks – all different. All of them different and, as I’ve been told quite often, all very much “Off The Wall”.
For our most recent game my idea for the talk came from what most binds them together as a team, and what is likely to have the biggest impact on a disparate group of eighteen young players mostly aged 19-25. The other main idea was about how to present this to engage their interactive compliance – or in other words how to make it work!
The Archetypal Team Talk
There’s this notion that the archetype of every team talk involves one person doing all the talking, sometimes in the style of Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt, and everyone else just listening – like dumb sponges.
So, are they listening? Evidence has it that not everyone IS listening – and even when they are, how they are interpreting what they are hearing is anyone’s guess, given that there are 18 players I’m talking to, each with his own perception of reality, his own understanding of what I’m saying or implying, or trying to get across as a message. Finally, even when the grasp of my message has been received and translated, the players then have to go out into the match and interpret with their actions during the course of play, the whole focus of what we are collectively trying to achieve.
How difficult is this for them?
Even at international level we see teams’ performances fluctuate and ebb and flow through a game, a series, a season. These are elite professionals, at the top of their game. To bring some positive things to bear at a grass roots level is much more of a challenge – and to make it happen consistently multiplies that challenge.
So, coming from a different direction I decided to let the players do their own pre-match talk, rather than have me ‘spout’ at them yet again!
Playing at what I love
As they were sat in the changing room ready for the warm-up I asked them to work in pairs. They were to engage with the person next to them and one was to talk for a minute and the other was to listen for a minute. The listener was asked not to talk back, ask questions or get into conversation with his partner- he was to just listen. Then, after a minute they would swap roles. The topic I asked them to talk about to their partner was “What I love most about playing Rugby.” In other words – what brings me to this match today, and what do I get out of it the most.
This is a really generative process. It gets the talker to go inside to his thoughts, and then express himself to his partner. The unconscious process of speech formation is engaged with his thoughts through this, which is quite a distraction to any of those with pre-match nerves. The act of listening without having to talk back is also a good thing for mental warm-up. The swapping of roles then has the effect of switching off - then switching back on in a different way – thus double-distracting the internal dialogue and getting them more able to engage at an unconscious level.
With my explanation and their chat this took less than four minutes in total. The relevance was that they were all able to express to each other what they loved the most about this mutual activity – reaffirming to and for each other what makes them a team, what ties them together in a common bond.
Conclusion
What were the Outcomes?
Well, as one player said afterwards, the opposition didn’t quite know what had hit them. The team played as a cohesive unit, players were more focussed, and more committed, some of the individual and collective skills on show were exceptional, compared to previous performances this season.
The real and probable long-lasting effect is that they gained an embodied
understanding that they were doing it all for each other.
For me this is quite satisfying. However, my dilemma with the rugby team I coach on a voluntary basis is that this is now the fourth season I’ve coached them and, although the mixture of team personnel has changed through these years, I’ve probably done about 50 team talks – all different. All of them different and, as I’ve been told quite often, all very much “Off The Wall”.
For our most recent game my idea for the talk came from what most binds them together as a team, and what is likely to have the biggest impact on a disparate group of eighteen young players mostly aged 19-25. The other main idea was about how to present this to engage their interactive compliance – or in other words how to make it work!
The Archetypal Team Talk
There’s this notion that the archetype of every team talk involves one person doing all the talking, sometimes in the style of Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt, and everyone else just listening – like dumb sponges.
So, are they listening? Evidence has it that not everyone IS listening – and even when they are, how they are interpreting what they are hearing is anyone’s guess, given that there are 18 players I’m talking to, each with his own perception of reality, his own understanding of what I’m saying or implying, or trying to get across as a message. Finally, even when the grasp of my message has been received and translated, the players then have to go out into the match and interpret with their actions during the course of play, the whole focus of what we are collectively trying to achieve.
How difficult is this for them?
Even at international level we see teams’ performances fluctuate and ebb and flow through a game, a series, a season. These are elite professionals, at the top of their game. To bring some positive things to bear at a grass roots level is much more of a challenge – and to make it happen consistently multiplies that challenge.
So, coming from a different direction I decided to let the players do their own pre-match talk, rather than have me ‘spout’ at them yet again!
Playing at what I love
As they were sat in the changing room ready for the warm-up I asked them to work in pairs. They were to engage with the person next to them and one was to talk for a minute and the other was to listen for a minute. The listener was asked not to talk back, ask questions or get into conversation with his partner- he was to just listen. Then, after a minute they would swap roles. The topic I asked them to talk about to their partner was “What I love most about playing Rugby.” In other words – what brings me to this match today, and what do I get out of it the most.
This is a really generative process. It gets the talker to go inside to his thoughts, and then express himself to his partner. The unconscious process of speech formation is engaged with his thoughts through this, which is quite a distraction to any of those with pre-match nerves. The act of listening without having to talk back is also a good thing for mental warm-up. The swapping of roles then has the effect of switching off - then switching back on in a different way – thus double-distracting the internal dialogue and getting them more able to engage at an unconscious level.
With my explanation and their chat this took less than four minutes in total. The relevance was that they were all able to express to each other what they loved the most about this mutual activity – reaffirming to and for each other what makes them a team, what ties them together in a common bond.
Conclusion
What were the Outcomes?
Well, as one player said afterwards, the opposition didn’t quite know what had hit them. The team played as a cohesive unit, players were more focussed, and more committed, some of the individual and collective skills on show were exceptional, compared to previous performances this season.
The real and probable long-lasting effect is that they gained an embodied
understanding that they were doing it all for each other.
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